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| Chess News ChessBase 14 Download Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more. The Lewis Chessmen were never anywhere near Iceland [abridged version] By Morten Lilleøren The Lewis chessmen are possibly the most famous chess pieces ever made. They were found on the island Lewis in the Hebrides in 1831. Altogether the finding contains 93 items, of which 78 are chessmen. 67 of them are in the British Museum (some of them are shown in figure 1) and eleven are in the Scottish National Museum. They are regarded as some of the most remarkable artifacts from the Middle Ages. Figure 1 The Lewis Chessmen, 12th century, British Museum, London In 2010 a ChessBase article was published entitled ”The Enigma of the Lewis Chessmen”, written by Gudmundur G. Thorarinsson, with a preface by Einar S. Einarsson. The content is filled with faults and oversights.

All the same, with few reservations parts of the chess world adopted the theories put forward. It has also reached the books: Chess Masterpieces: One Thousand Years of Extraordinary Chess Sets , by Dean and Brady (2010) perpetuates the arguments of Thorarinsson (Dean and Brady, 2010, p. 39-40) The arguments – a summary In brief: Thorarinsson claims that the Lewis chessmen were made in Iceland. The main arguments are as follows: Icelandic and English are the only languages that use the words bishop/biskup and rook/hrokur. No other language has ever used these words for the pieces. This makes Iceland the most probable origin of the Lewis pieces. Another argument is the shape of the knights’ horses. They allegedly strongly resemble the Icelandic horse race. The fourth argument is that there were many good walrus-ivory carvers in Iceland, and the last main argument is that there were a lot of trade between Iceland and Greenland, where the ivory, the material for the chessmen, came from.

The bishop Einarsson states on page 3: “The word 'bishop' for a chess piece is only used in two languages, Icelandic and English.” They stumble at the start: there are several languages that use this name nowadays: English, Icelandic and Faroese are in one special group, as they have most names in common. The former two are known – in The Faroe Islands the names of the major pieces are: rókur, riddari, bispur, frúgv, kongur. As Thorarinsson’s main point is based upon the assumption that Iceland and England alone are using these names nowadays, he is already proven wrong. The word meaning “bishop” is also used in Ireland (easpag), Wales (gaelic - esgob) and Portugal (bispo). Thorarinsson states on page 16: “The Lewis Chessmen are the only chess pieces that connect chess with the church” Figure 2 Bishop, 12th c., English, Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York Figure 3 Bishop, 12th c., National Museum, Copenhagen.

Wichmann nr.46 (1960) Figure 4 Bishop, 14th c., Staatliche Museum Berlin. Greygoose nr. 21 (1979) (Cazaux, 2010) Figure 5 Bishop, 14th c., Staatliche Museum, Berlin. Greygoose nr.26 (1979) (Cazaux, 2010) Figure 6 Bishop, medieval / undated, Kgl. Museet, Stockholm. Mackett-Beeson nr 9 (1969) Figure 7 Bishop, 14th c., Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich. Wichmann nr. 64 (1960) (Cazaux, 2010) Figure 2-7 shows that Thorarinsson is wrong in this respect. All these bishops are from other findings than the Lewis chessmen. It all adds up to Hollander’s statement: “Der ‘reitende bischof’ ist als schachfigur besonders aus dem 14.

Jahrhundert bekannt” .Translated into English: “As a chesspiece the riding bishop is well known, in particular from the 14th century”. In this matter Thorarinsson states (on page 16): “The Lewis Chessmen are the only chess pieces that include bishops with crosier and mitres and full ceremonial clothing”. Clearly he missed out on something. Einarsson goes on: “In most other languages, including Norwegian, this piece was – and still is – called a “runner” (ibid., p.3). Thorarinsson himself states: “In Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe, this piece is called “löber” or “Leufer”, meaning runner or messenger. As far as is known, Norwegians have never called this piece a bishop” (ibid. p.9). The Figures 2 to 7 above tell us something else. Some written facts can be added: in a Danish (Norwegian)-Latin dictionary from 1626 one entry is: “Bisspe paa Skackspil” (transl: “Bishops in chess” ). The name “laufer” comes into ordinary chess at a late stage.

The first known time the term laufer/runner is mentioned for the German piece, is in Hyde’s history of chess. At the very same page the names of the Danish (i.e. Norwegian) pieces are mentioned. The bishop was still: “biscop” or “bisp”. Thorarinsson misses the target by half a millennium. The rook Thorarinsson states: “English and Icelandic speak of a rook (hrókur). Berserkers seem to figure nowhere except among the Lewis chessmen”. (ibid., p.12) Again Thorarinsson is wrong: There are not as many old pieces of rook-warriors as there are bishops, but they do exist. Figure 8 Warrier rook,13th c., Kgl.Museet, Stockholm, found in Øland. A.Goldschmidt: b. IV, nr.250 (1923-26). O.Ferm et al. (2005, p.33.) Figure 9 Warrier rook,12th c., National Museum, Copenhagen. This one is Hollander nr.

25 (2005) On the other hand, in this case we have several written sources, including Scandinavian ones, directly proving Thorarinsson wrong: The first is “Schack-tafvels Lek”, a Swedish translation of de Cessolis’ allegory “The Book of Chess”. In “Schacktafvels Lek” the rook is named “rok”, We also have the dictionary mentioned above: The entry is “Rocke paa Skackspill” Hyde is again relevant: “Rock” or “elephant”. In Poland they used these words, according to Hyde: “Pòp”, meaning priest, and “roch”. Murray tells that a Czech 14th c. Vocabulary gives exactly the same words.The German word through the whole medieval period is “roch”. The word appears as late as 1843 in Bilguer. Obviously oblivious to all this, Thorarinsson writes: “In Scandinavia and Germany, this chess piece is called “tower”, Swedish torn, Danish tårn..” ( p.12).

The fact is that in medieval times Rok/roch/rokur was the name of the piece in Germany, most of northern Europe and all over Scandinavia. It seems like Thorarinsson and Einarsson believe that because the names are what they are today, it must always have been this way. There are no literary proof of any “turm/tårn/torn/tower” in the languages of Scandinavia and Germany in medieval times. Rewriting history Now let us turn to another point, and this is where it all becomes serious: Iceland was inhabited as late as from 870 and onwards, mainly by Norwegians. This means that the Icelanders spoke the Old Norwegian (West Norse) language. The language of the sagas is in fact Norse, not Icelandic. The languages were almost the same until the middle of the 14th century. Here is in brief what then happened: The plague, the Black Death (1350), was definitely the worst disaster ever in Norway. It killed more than half the Norwegian population – and simultaneously more or less destroyed the written language. Too many people of literacy died.

Looking at the documents shortly after the plague, it is possible to see that the scribes had difficulties handling their duties. At the same time, the political ruling class was decimated and, beginning a little after 1350 with personal unions between the Scandinavian kingdoms, Norway became a part of Denmark. After a while all official documents were written in Danish. The (written) language was gone. West Norse language (in Norway) was now only an oral language. And, during time, even the oral language grossly changed. Norwegians nowadays speak a language close to Danish. But the language once existed in Norway, back when the Lewis pieces were made. It has therefore no merit to claim that Norwegians have never used the word "biskup". if the Icelanders used the word “biskup”, the Norwegians must have done the same! The knight Now let us turn to the knight – Thorarinsson states: “The knights are mounted on horses that seem Icelandic in both size and head shape” (ibid., p.14) Figure 10 Knight, 12th c., Museo Bargello, Florence. A.Goldschmidt: b.

IV, nr.264 (1923-26) Figure 11 Queen, 14th c. National Museum, Copenhagen. (Cazaux, 2010) Figure 13 Knight, Museo Bargello, Florence. Sanvito p. 48 (1992) (Cazaux, 2010) These images of other medieval chess pieces are shown because they have horses of a similar shape as the Lewis chess pieces. This whole argument is far-fetched: The Lewis chessmen horses are highly stylized. Therefore the size and shape of them cannot be taken as an argument for any particular horse breed. The Lewis chess horses are not shaped and formed after the horse’s natural shape, it is mainly the chessboard and the shape of the other pieces that forms this piece. A horse is by nature, seen from above, of a more or less rectangular shape. Unfortunately this shape does not fit too well into the squares of the chessboard, which are quadratic. Therefore the horses as chess pieces are very often re-shaped – to fit into the squares. In this matter I have to add that the knights have another limitation: They should not be taller than the kings.

This is an (unwritten) rule affecting all chess sets even nowadays. Both these limitations points towards a compact knight piece. The carvings Now to another matter: The alleged similarity between the ornaments on the back of the pieces’ thrones and Icelandic carvings. Thorarinsson states: “Decorative art and carving were highly developed in Iceland at this time. Many examples are known of Icelandic bishops’ sending or bringing fine gifts carved from walrus tusks to foreigners. Artists, goldsmiths, and master carvers were employed at the bishops’ seats, and written records state outright that walrus tusk was among their raw materials.” (p.14) And the evidence is: “The pattern of carving on the chessmen is in a Romanesque style. This style is well known in Iceland from the time of these carvings to the present day.” And then it comes: “In Ellen Marie Magerøy’s book Planteornamentikken i islandsk treskurd, there are pictures of contemporary carvings that do not seem to bear much resemblance to the patterns on the Lewis chessmen.” (ibid., p.7). I could not have proven my point better myself.

As it is written: “The proof of the pudding is the eating.” In the aftermath of Darwin’s publication of “On the origin of species...” an important aspect of older archaeology was summarized as: what the species are for the science of nature, the type/form is for archaeology. This was later modified: the form doesn’t always change according to utility, but more according to whims of fashion. To rephrase Darwinism: in archaeology it is “the survival of the prettiest” that guides an aspect of the art. In a way this is similar to perhaps the most important ability of a chess player, generally recognized as “pattern recognition”. The chess player in a way x-rays the positions in front of him, to find chunks of pieces, clusters that form a familiar pattern. The archaeologists do the same, they look for fragments that have a familiar design. This means that it is possible to locate shapes, forms, figures, whatever, by resemblance, both geographically and in time. This is where Thorarinsson fails (see above) and where Trondheim/Nidaros (same city: Two names) during time has added up points (7).

The pamphlets of the British Museum make a thorough research in this respect: Taylor (1978) devotes a major part of his pamphlet to this (p.8-15, including a lot of pictures, showing the resemblance between the chessmen’s carvings and similar ornaments of Scandinavian – non-Icelandic – origin). Stratford(1997) devotes pp. 41-47 to the same, and Robinson(2004) pp.30-37 and p. 58. Figure 18 Lewis chess king, back of throne Figure 19 Lewis chess king, back of throne Figures 18-19 show the backs of some of the pieces. Many other pieces have similar ornaments. These ornament patterns, with plants and animals, are in particular located in ancient Norway. Liebgott writes (when discussing a similar object): “The circular plant patterns are in its structure common throughout northern Europe. What makes the carving so distinctly Norwegian, is the peculiar animals that grab hold of each other” Caldwell et al.

writes: “…most scholars would at present expect to locate the manufacture of such pieces in a town or large trading centre…(The craftsmen) had a good understanding of the robes, vestments and protective clothing worn by kings, queens, bishops and knights. This surely suggests that they had access to such people, or were perhaps employed in workshops provided by a king or archbishop. Lewis had no towns at the time in question, but there were strong links..(to) major Norwegian towns…” Iceland did not have any such towns. And throughout his text, Thorarinsson makes a point about the fact that Iceland never had a king nor queen living on the island. Robinson concludes: “Trondheim is the most likely candidate...“ (p.58) and Stratford (1997): “Trondheim or another Scandinavian town is at the moment the strongest candidate..”(p.47). Why do they come to this conclusion? There have been some major findings that make Trondheim the likely place of origin, the most important being this: Figure 20 Trondheim chess queen, image taken from McLees and Ekroll (1990) Figure 20 shows the drawing of the Trondheim queen.

I have to quote at length from the article reporting about the (re)finding: “The figurine is directly comparable with the queen pieces from the Isle of Lewis chess sets in terms of raw material, size, form and sculptural details. Regarding raw material, Krefting states that the piece consisted of ivory, and the probability is that it comprised walrus ivory. The eight Lewis queens vary considerably in size; however, the dimensions of the Trondheim figurine's surviving portion, at 4.5 cm high, would be compatible with an original height somewhere in the region of 9 cm (an additional 4.5 cm would accommodate a suitably proportioned lower body and throne), comparing favourably with the two tallest Lewis queens. The most striking and evocative trait, however, is the characteristic, indeed, idiosyncratic, pose adopted by the figure, where the right hand rests against the right cheek. This is the most eloquent clue to the piece's particular iconographic and functional status, and, with the design of the folded shoulder-length kerchief, places it conclusively in the company of the chess queens from Lewis” (McLees, C and Ekroll, Ø 1990, p.

151) “There can be no doubt that the Trondheim queen derives from the same workshop which produced the Lewis pieces. By virtue of its art-historical dating, it is almost certainly the earliest chess piece yet found in Norway, and is possibly one of the earliest representational forms of chess piece known from Scandinavia. The presence of this new member of the 'Lewis family' on Norwegian soil in the very heart of one of the country's most important 12th-century cities also serves to focus attention on contemporary developments in and around the city of Trondheim itself. These may have some relevance to any discussion relating to the location of the workshop in question. The manifest competence, inventiveness and interaction of local schools of Romanesque minor and monumental carving is well documented: the long-established presence in the town of professional woodcarvers and boneworkers who produced items of superior quality; the characteristic 'Trondheim Group' of stave-church portals; the local strain of ornamental stone carving in the district's Romanesque stone churches, centered particularly, from c.

1120, on the cathedral workshops; and, if the inferences implicit in the motifs common to a number of carved ivories, including a possible crozier head found on the nearby island of Munkholmen, can be trusted, the range of skills and motifs shared by local sculptors also extended to the intricate carving of walrus ivory.”(ibid ,p,153) Tithe and Trade “Iceland had a strong connection to Greenland at this time. Icelanders settled Greenland with a large fleet of ships, and these Greenlanders had many friends and relatives in Iceland. Records describe bishops’ ships that brought goods from Greenland at that time…. Icelanders thus had access to walrus tusks and other raw materials from Greenland.” (Thorarinsson (2010, p.14) For once I agree with Thorarinsson. Both Norwegians and Icelanders travelled to Greenland, and all three areas eventually became united under the rule of the Norwegian king. But long before this happened, the churches of the two islands were connected to Trondheim/Nidaros. That happened when the archbishopric of the north/Nidaros was founded in 1152/53.

From then on, the provinces had to pay tithe to the archbishopric. This came on top of commercial trade, social and family relations between the three countries. Walrus tusk came from the arctic region, from the shores of what is now known as Russia, but a lot of it came from Greenland. And, as written documents show, Greenland paid their tribute in naturals, amongst them walrus ivory. This means that when the archbishopric was established, Nidaros all of a sudden received a lot more ivory than before. Note the concurrence of the new archbishopric and the dating of the Lewis chessmen. It can of course be a coincidence, but the two parts fit well into each other. Again I quote McLees and Ekroll: “A potential catalyst uniting home-grown talent with an assured source of appropriate raw material may be sought in the city's establishment as the seat of the Archdiocese of Nidaros in 1152/3, the resulting influx of walrus ivory as payment of tithes from the diocese of Greenland possibly engendering the local production of sophisticated carved ivories, perhaps under the aegis of the archbishopric itself.

Such a workshop, drawing on a pool of indigenous skills and techniques, an abundant supply of ivory, and located in an appropriate and dynamic cultural setting, might conceivably have produced objects as extraordinary and as expressive of their time as the Lewis and Trondheim chess pieces.” (McLees and Ekroll 1990 p.154) Before summarizing, I add another quote: “According to Dr. Alex Woolf, director of the Institute for Medieval Studies of the University of St. Andrews, reasons for believing the chess pieces probably came from Trondheim include: a broken queen piece in a similar styIe found in an excavation of the archbishop's palace (it appeared the piece was broken as it was being made), the presence of wealthy people in Trondheim capable of paying craftsmen for the high-quality pieces, similar carving in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, the excavation in Trondheim of a kite-shaped shield similar to shields on some of the pieces, and a king piece of similar design found on Hitra Island, near the mouth of Trondheim Fjord.

He said that the armour worn by the chess figures includes "perfect" reproductions of armour worn at the time in Norway.” (1) Conclusion For a conclusion, simply add the trade route and the tithe from Greenland to Norway to the last quote. Continue by reviewing the pictures above, which show that bishops and rooks are found in various parts of northern Europe. Add to this the philology, the written facts about the existence of these names for the pieces almost all over northern Europe. Look at the chess knights’ horses: They are stylized. Can they be used to sort out an existing horse breed? If so: Would it then be the Icelandic horse that had to be the chosen one? Is this at all a valid argument? I say no. And, last but not least: How can Thorarinsson claim that the Norwegian words are differing from the Icelandic, when all dictionaries, all books on Norse language history claims that Icelandic and Norwegian were a common Old Norse language at least until the Plague, the Black Death, in 1350? Seen from the outside it seems like Thorarinsson and Einarsson have started with the conclusion that Iceland is the place where the pieces were made.

Then all the arguments that might possibly contribute to such a conclusion has been added, without taking such petty considerations as to examine historical facts, exercise source criticism and so on. “When the beginning is a frenzy, the outcome often becomes an oddity”. Ibsen (1867, act 4) A more extensive version of this article, with full notes and additional arguments, has appeared in Chess Cafe . When it disappears from the Skittles Room you will be able to locate it in the archives . References and sources Blomquist, G. (1941). Schachtafvelslek och Sju vise Mästare : studier i medeltidens litteratur historia. Stockholm, H. Geber. Biblioteca v.d.Linde – Niemeijeriana (1955). A catalogue of the chess collection in the Royal Library, The Hague. Caldwell, Hall and Wilkinson (2010). The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked, National Museums Scotland, Nms Enterprises Ltd. Caxton,W. and W. Axon (1474).

“The Game and Playe of the Chesse” a 2008 reprint of the 1883 edition Cazaux, Jean-Louis (2010) The first European chessmen. Available here . Accessed 13 February 2011 Colding, Poul Jensen (1626) The Dictionarium Herlovianum . Available here : Accessed 13 February 2011 De Cessolis, J. and H.L. Williams (2008). The Book of Chess. New York, Italica Press, Dean, G and M. Brady (2010). Chess Masterpieces: One Thousand Years of Extraordinary Chess Sets. New York : Abrams Books Ferm, O. (2005). Chess and Allegory in the Middle Ages. A collection of essays. Stockholm, Sällskapet Runica et Mediaevalia Fiske, D.W. (1905). Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic literature : with historical notes on other. table-games. Florence : Florentine Typographical Society Fróde, A. and F. Jonsson (1930). Islendingabók.

Available here : Accessed 13 February 2011 Goldschmidt, A.: (1923-26). “Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Romansichen Zeit”, bd. IV, Berlin, B. Cassirer. Greygoose, F. (1979). Chessmen. New York : Arco Pub. Hollander, B. and H. Hollander (2005). Schachpartie durch Zeiten und Welten. Heidelberg : Edition Braus Hovdhaugen,E., F. Karlsson, C. Henriksen and B. Sigurd (2000). The History of Linguisticsin the Nordic Countries. Available here : Accessed 13 February 2011 Hyde, T. (1694). De Ludis Orientalibus : Mandragorias, reprinted,translated and abbreviated in “Chess it’s Origin” Keats,V. (1994), Oxford Academia Publishers. Ibsen, Henrik (1867). Peer Gynt, Act 4, New edition (2009), Oslo,Vigmostad & Bjørke. Klemming, E.

(1881). “Medeltids Dikter och Rim”(“Schacktafvels Lek” s.201-312). Stockholm, Kongl. Boktryckeriet, P.A. Norsted&soner. Leitne, A., E. Lundeby and I. Torvik (1975, 6th ed.1989), Språket Vårt Før og Nå (Our language (Norse/Norwegian/Icelandic) earlier and now). Oslo, Gyldendal Liebgott, N.K. (1985). Elfenben (Ivory). Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen. Mackett-Beeson, A.E.J. (1969). Schachfiguren. New York, Putnam. McClain, Dylan Loeb (2010), Reopening History of Storied Norse Chessmen, New York Times , September 9, 2010 in the newspaper, page C2, Available here : Accessed 13 February 2011 Madden, F. (1832).

‘Historical remarks on the introduction of the game of chessinto Europe, and on the ancient chessmen discovered in the Isles of Lewis’, Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity,Volum 24, Society of Antiquaries of London, p.203–91. Availble here : Accessed 13 February 2011 McLees, C and Ø. Ekroll (1990). ‘A drawing of a medieval ivory chess piece from the 12th-century church of St Olav,Trondheim, Norway’, Medieval Archaeol 34, 151–4. Availble here . Accessed 13 February 2011 Merkistein, S. (1997). Føroysk telving í 20. øld. Tórshavn, Talvsamband Føroya Murray, H.J.R. (1913). A History of Chess. Oxford Clarenden Press Palsson , H. And L. Kjørsvik Schei (1997). Landnåmsboken.

Oslo, Thorleif Dahls kulturbibliotek Rafn, C.C. (1838). Om Skakspil i det gamle Norden, Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed 1838.Det kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, p.138-159. Copenhagen. Robinson, J. (2004). The Lewis Chessmen, London: British Museum. Sanvito, A. (1992). Figure di Schacchi. Milano :Mursia Selenus, G. (1616). Das Schach Oder Konig Spiel, Zürich, reprint 1978 by Olms. Stratford, N. (1997). The Lewis Chessmen and the Enigma of the Hoard, London: British Museum Press. Taylor, M. (1978). The Lewis Chessmen,London: British Museum Publication. Thorarinsson, G.G. (2010). The Enigma of the Lewis Chessmen. Available here . Accessed 8 February 2011 Van der Linde, A.

(1874). Skak i Island, særtrykk av Nordisk skaktidende 1874. Von Ammenhausen, K. and E. Vettel (1892). Das Schachzabelbuch,: nebst den Schachbüchern des Jakob von Cessole und des Jakob Mennel. Frauenfeld, J.Huber. Von Beringen, K and P. Zimmermann (1883). Das Schachgedicht Heinrichs von Beringen. Tübingen, Bibliotek der Litterarischen Vereins. Von der Lasa,T.H. (1843). Handbuch des Schachspiels(Bilguer), reprint 1979 Olms edition Wichmann,H. and S. Wichmann (1960). Schach-Ursprung und Wandlung der Spielfigur in zwölf Jahrhunderten. München, Callwey. Morten Lilleøren was born in 1955 and has lived most of his life in Oslo.

He is a rock fan who owns several thousand albums, and chess addict who started to play competitive OTB chess when he was 21 and has (had) a rating of around 2100 FIDE. Morten has played over 1000 OTB tournament games over the years. He is better at correspondence chess than OTB. Over the years he played more than 450 games. In 2003 he got the ICCF IM title and in 2007 the GM title. In 2007 he became Norwegian champion and a member of the Norwegian team that won the 15th Correspondence Chess Olympic final. He usually prefers thematic tournaments, which give the players more room to research one opening. Morten is not a book collector, but cannot resist buying them. He has somewhere around 7000 books, out of which there are a little over 1500 chess books. Somewhere along the road he discovered that the history of chess in northern Europe in medieval times was almost uninvestigated. Future plans include making a list of all chess pieces in Norwegian museums and all chess pieces found in the ruins of the Norse settlements in Greenland.

Previous ChessBase article on the subject The enigma of the Lewis chessmen 11.09.2010 – In 1831, in Edinburgh, Scotland, a collection of chessmen found on the Isle of Lewis was displayed for the first time. These 12th century handcrafted pieces made from walrus tusks and whale teeth have since become iconic examples of our lasting love for wargames. Their origins, however, is one of theory and controversy. Here is an illustrated article on the world's most famous chess set. Feedback and mail to our news service Please use this account if you want to contribute to or comment on our news page service Names Of All Chess Pieces - Chess Glossary Article WaddenCC Photography Names Of All Chess Pieces If you've been hunting around for the Names Of All Chess Pieces, then hunt no more, as this page has what you're looking for ... A game of Chess involves two opponents, each having a total of 16 pieces, made up of 6, er, characters.

These are they: Names Of All Chess Pieces - Pawn - Being a war game, the Pawn is kind of like your common foot soldier - often the first ones into battle, while being more expendable than those of a higher rank, such as the Knight. In total, each player begins a game of Chess with 8 Pawns on the board. On a Pawns first move, it may move either 1 or 2 squares forward, depending on your opening strategy. However, thereafter, a Pawn may only move one square forward per turn and it can never move backwards. As for capturing, a Pawn can only capture on either one of the diagonal squares in front of its current position ... This means that when another piece is on a square directly in front - on the straight line, your Pawn is stuck and cannot move forward until the blocking piece moves, or an enemy piece is within legal range for capture. Read More About The Pawn Names Of All Chess Pieces - Knight - The Knight is the piece that often looks like a horse - well, a horse's head (kind of like in The Godfather, but without the blood). Each player begins a game of Chess with 2 Knights on the board.

We've said that it is often one of the Pawns that moves first, at the start of a game ... Often, but not always, as the Knight's ability to jump over pieces allows it to be the only other piece that can make a move at the very beginning of a game. The Knight is also unique in the way it moves ... Whereas other pieces go in straight lines - be it on the staights, or along the diagonals - the Knight moves in an L-shape. It goes either two squares forward and one to the left or right; or one square to the left or right and two squares forward ... Which you choose will, naturally, depend on potential for positional advantage, capture, to avoid being captured, or for lack of options when your other pieces are blocking certain squares within the Knight's legal range of movement. Read More About The Knight Names Of All Chess Pieces - Bishop - At the start of a game, each player has 2 Bishops on the board. One patrols the light-colored squares; the other goes along the dark-colored squares. As for range of movement, the Bishops move only on the diagonals but are able to go from one corner of the board to the other, on their colored squares.

This makes the Bishop a great, long-distance threat to your opponent - though, obviously, the flip side is your pieces are at an equal risk from the enemy Bishops. When it comes to realtive value, two Bishops are considered more valuable than either two Knights, or a Knight and a Bishop working together. Though, of course, the threat of the two Bishop pieces are only as good as the skill of the player who controls their movement. Read More About The Bishop Names Of All Chess Pieces - Rook - Each player gets 2 Rooks, at the start of a game of Chess. Their range of movement is along the straights - if they have the space, they can get from one side of the board to the other, in a single move. The Rooks are most effective in the middle of the board. As they start a game in the corner squares, part of your opening strategy will be to, somehow, bring your Rooks inwards, while trying to mobilize your other pieces, ready for the carnage that takes place during the Middlegame stage. Two Rooks operating together can be more potent than a single Queen, if used wisely.

The obvious threat is from the diagonals, which means one of the greatest threats to the Rook are from the Bishop and Queen, at distance; while at more close-range, Pawns that have good support can also prove hazardous to your Rooks. Read More About The Rook Names Of All Chess Pieces - Queen - The Queen is by far the most potent, attacking piece on the board. At one time, when the game of Chess was played in Medieval times, the Queen was restricted to one square move per turn and only on the diagonals. She was a much weaker piece back then. However, it must have been when PMT was fully recognized as a potential threat to man, that the Queen, in a game of Chess, suddenly took on a more devastating range of attacking options ... She combines the diagonal power of the Bishops, with the straight-line threat of the Rooks. Read More About The Queen Names Of All Chess Pieces - King - Even with the Queen's attacking prowess, the King is your most precious piece on the board ... If it is attacked in such a way that there are no legally-safe places to move, your King will find itself in a situation known as "Checkmate" - and you'll lose the game, immediately.

It doesn't matter if you have all your good pieces still on the board, if your King succumbs to Checkmate, it's gameover! So, use your pieces wisely, to protect your King, while you somehow exploit weaknesses in your opponent's setup. Does this mean a King is totally useless? It's vulnerable, for sure, but the King can work to secure a Win - though not on its own; you'll usually have a majority of pieces, over your opponent's ... The King can be used to capture stray Pawns and, as Kings cannot be next to each other, on the board, you can use your King to tactically cut off escape routes for the enemy King. Read More About The King Making a Chess Set You can get me at: matthew (at) byrney (dot) com All comments, questions etc., are welcome! Making a Chess Set Introduction Some time ago I decided I wanted a nice chess set. I'm not very good at chess; that is to say, anyone who plays on average more than about once a month would probably kick my ass. Anyway, so what? I wanted a chess set with nice big chunky pieces, a funky, stylish (but traditional (i.e.

Staunton-based)) design, nice materials and high-quality craftsmanship. It turns out this is a rather ambitious set of requirements. My searches in shops and online revealed a plethora of sets with timid-looking kings, queens wearing doilies instead of crowns, rooks that would have had the wolf happily munching on a confused and indignant third little pig, and bishops with a kind of pederastic creepiness about them. This isn't right at all! Kings should be dignified and grandiose; queens, the most powerful pieces on the board, must look beautiful and deadly in equal measure, like the queen from Snow White (surely the hottest character in the film, at least before she turns herself into a fruit-peddling human scrotum); rooks should be solid, weighty and massive; and bishops (who in real life are never corrupt, filthy perverts) need to be graceful and statuesque. So I bought a lathe and learned to use it. Nearly five years later, I've made loads of chess pieces in all shapes and sizes from many different types of wood, and all of a sudden I find myself on a mission to make the long-sought-after set. Here goes...

Materials The raw blocks of wood - maple for the light pieces, cocobolo for the dark ones Wood, obviously. For the light pieces, North American maple - not exactly exotic or expensive, but nevertheless pretty. It also has the advantage of being easy to work with. Oh, and I happen to have tons of the stuff lying around. For the dark pieces, cocobolo. Cocobolo (like most tropical hardwoods) has exactly one good quality - it's very beautiful. The downsides are that it's expensive, dense, oily, hard, rare and poisonous. Moving even moderate-sized blocks of the stuff is difficult due to its weight. It's so hard and abrasive that it's not uncommon to have to sharpen tools several times during the manufacture of a single chess piece, and it's a real chore to use hand tools on. The oil content of the wood causes it to clog sandpaper and fine-toothed saw blades very quickly. Also, it's a health hazard, causing allergic reactions in most people. Since making this chess set will involve spending upwards of 60 hours bathing in cocobolo dust, this isn't ideal.

Finally, the wood is very rare and endangered, so when I find a source of it, I buy as much as I possibly can, just in case it finally becomes extinct. Humourless readers will be frothing at the maw about now, so to all you people who have difficulty spotting sarcasm: I'm kidding. I buy from responsible suppliers. Here is the wood for the pieces, cut to size. The blocks are all about 52mm square (with the obvious exception of the bits which aren't square). The pieces will have base diameters a smidge under two inches. The Pawns A half-finished pawn, with the reference design held next to it for easy comparison I started with the pawns. This is a psychological ploy: the pawns are the quickest pieces to make. Blast through all 16 of them in one frenzied sawdusty binge, and then you can kid yourself that you're half finished. It's much easier laboriously turning stubborn blocks of wood into horses' heads if you can occasionally glance over at your magnificent phalanx of completed pawns, silently awaiting their comrades. Pawns are both easy and difficult.

They're easy because they're the only radially symmetric chess piece, and therefore the only one that can be completed fully on the lathe, without the need for sawing, carving, riffling, filing, notching or chiselling. They're also the smallest piece. However, more than any other type of piece, pawns have to match each other. True, there are other pieces on the board which have to match, but only pawns appear eight in a row, conveniently arranged for unappreciative, pedantic whingers to blurt out things like "that one's taller than that one!" If, say, the white rooks aren't quite the same as each other, who really cares? Who's going to notice? But the pawns must be as monotonously unvarying and facelessly conformist as the working-class cannon fodder they represent. So, I rigged up a gadget to hold a pawn in place while I turned its brothers (is that sexist? Maybe I should say "siblings"). It's just a load of copper wire, twisted up for rigidity, attached to a bit of wood which is held onto the headstock by a small but fiercely powerful rare earth magnet.

Pretty low-tech, but it does the job. With this setup, I got all 16 pawns done in two days. The finished pawns, with the remaining blanks A quick word about how I finish the pieces. They're sanded while spinning on the lathe (about 1500 rpm to 2500 rpm for maple; slower for cocobolo, or the heat generated melts the wood's natural oils and clogs the sandpaper) with abrasive papers in 120, 150, 180, 240, 320, 400, 600, 1000 and 1500 grit (obviously in that order). With the maple I reverse the lathe for alternate sandings, so that the grain doesn't just "lie down" but is smoothed properly. For the cocobolo, this isn't necessary because the wood is so dense and fine-grained. After sanding, the piece is burnished with a handful of wood shavings.

Then it's given a coat of shellac diluted with ethanol (to penetrate the grain), followed by a couple of coats of undiluted shellac lubricated with a drop or two of olive oil. This isn't exactly French polishing, but it's a close approximation. Spinning the lathe nice and fast for the final coat brings the piece to a lustrous shine and renders the finish touch-dry, which is a big time saver. I part the pieces off with a hacksaw and not a parting tool, and yes, I do it with the lathe spinning at about 400 rpm. Responses to this range from "so what?" to "you shouldn't be allowed near a lathe!" All I'll say in response is that I've never hurt myself doing things this way, it wastes a minimal amount of wood and it's convenient. So there. The Knights After a rough sanding The finished knight Knights. What a pain.

I reckon that when Nathaniel Cook was designing the pattern of chess pieces which was to become the modern gold standard, he simply lost interest half way through - which is why the pawn, rook, bishop, king and queen are all distinctive, beautiful abstractions, and the knights are bluntly literal horses' heads. Come to think of it, why are they horses' heads? Yes, knights ride horses - but so what? Kings and queens ride horses too. Well, whatever. It could have been worse - imagine if Cook had run out of good designs before doing the kings and queens. I wouldn't fancy having to make wood carvings of inbred, chinless morons. On a practical note, many members of the royal family actually resemble horses, which could lead to confusion with the knights. Mother nature didn't see fit to equip the common horse with a geometrically simple form, describable as an elegant union of spheres, cylinders, tori and prisms - instead she produced a nonsensical mess of hair, teeth, nostrils, eyes and myriad other bizarre shapes which defy the ordered precision of lathes and milling machines.

You can turn the base of a knight on a lathe as usual, and thereafter the rest of the blank must be hewn into the required shape using a combination of sawing, carving, filing, sanding and swearing. My knights have a tendency to turn out looking like mooses (meese?), which isn't so bad because I think mooses are cute. Actually they're more like a cross between a moose and a hippopotamus. Well, as long as they have some individuality, the usability of the set isn't compromised. The sequence of pictures shows how a knight is made. First the base is turned; then the horsey bit is roughly sawn into shape on the bandsaw. This involves some finicky cuts near the blade and because the piece is a strange, irregular shape there's virtually no support from the table, so it's easy to lose fingers here. There are four knights so it's vital not to average more than 2.5 amputated digits per piece. Next, the head is roughly cut into shape. Ordinarily this would be done using a carefully maintained, razor sharp honed set of expensive carving tools.

I don't have any such thing because I don't really do wood carving, so I use a crappy old chisel which I occasionally scrape impatiently against a grindstone. After this, a sanding with coarse abrasive cloth licks the knight further into shape. A side note: the knight is being held in my old lathe (a Record DML24X), which is serving as not much more than a sturdy vice. Finally, the details are carved in and polish applied. Awesome hairstyle, huh? The Rooks Rook cutting setup: milling machine, rotary table with chuck, custom arbor with biscuit jointer blade attached I'm really rather pleased with these. Rooks are deceptively difficult to get right. The basic shape is similar to that of a pawn, the differences being that a rook is bigger, has more decorative bits and has a cylindrical head with battlements cut into it. Turning these on the lathe is easy and hollowing the top of the head is quickly done with a forstner bit held in a chuck in the tailstock. The trick, then, is to cut the battlements properly. Cutting the crown of a queen is dead easy by comparison because the required shape is rounded and organic.

Cutting a crisp, accurate notch with a rectangular cross section is much harder. Trying this "by eye" using a hacksaw and files and sandpaper and chisels is an exercise in frustration. Using a bandsaw makes the job a little more tolerable, but still far from easy. There's a much better way. So, what we have here is a chuck mounted on a rotary table mounted vertically on a milling machine. Yes, I know, the rotary table is far too big for the mill. If this bothers you, feel free to buy me a bigger milling machine . In the spindle of the milling machine is a stub arbor, i.e. a hardened ground Morse taper shank with a soft steel head, on which I've turned a shallow 22mm spigot using my trusty engineering lathe. The head was then drilled and tapped M6. Then all one has to do is stick a biscuit jointer blade on the spigot and secure it with a washer and M6 machine screw, and presto - a custom wide-kerf slotting saw! The mill only spins this blade at about 15% of the speed it was designed for, but this doesn't seem to matter at all.

It cuts beautifully. Closeup of one of the cuts The rest is self-explanatory. Advance the table so that the saw cuts a slot to the required depth; move back out of the cut; advance the rotary table by 60 degrees; repeat. Queens, kings and bishops We've handled pawns, knights and rooks; that leaves kings, queens and bishops. There's nothing very difficult about these pieces, although they each have their quirks. Briefly, then: 1. Getting a queen to look good involves a surprisingly fine balance of the proportons of the piece. It's astonishingly easy to wreck a queen by making it too fat, too thin, too big-bottomed, too big-headed, too spiky, too wide or too much like it's wearing a bowler hat, which, believe it or not, is very possible indeed. 2. Kings have a "cross pattée" at the top, which means the arms of the cross are rather big and supported by narrow bits with the grain running in exactly the wrong direction. Tread very very lightly when cutting these unless you just love gluing things back together. 3.

The slot in the top of a bishop is as annoying to cut as the slots in rooks. I did these by hand but next time, I think I'm going to stick the bishops in the rook-slot-cutting jig. And that's all the pieces dealt with. That just leaves... The Board Some veneer squares and the blocks they're cut from, on the MDF base Gluing the ebony edges on. Note the froth that the polyurethane adhesive has produced in the joint The board's easy, right? Well, no. Getting 64 squares of wood cut accurately and arranged properly is a process which carries an enormous potential for error. The smart way to do it is to cut long strips of wood in each colour and glue them together, to make a board with 8 stripes rather than 64 squares. Then you cut this into eight pieces perpendicular to the stripes and flip alternate pieces around and glue them back together. This is all very well if you have an accurate table saw and wood of the right dimensions, although it does mean that the bits of wood have to be thick enough to make edge-bonding them into a panel feasible.

When you're making a 2 foot square board using cocobolo, this is bloody expensive. Anyway, I don't have a table saw and I don't crap diamonds, so I was forced to do it the hard way and make 64 veneer squares and glue them into place one by one. The base of my board is a bit of 18mm thick MDF. I cut 75mmx75mmx3mm bits of cocobolo and maple (32 of each, obviously) on the bandsaw and got out my bottle of PVA. 100 points for anyone who can tell what's about to go wrong. See, PVA glue has water in it. Smearing PVA on one side of a bit of 3mm thick maple causes it to slurp this water up, and it stops being a lovely flat square and starts looking like a pringle. This happens long before the glue has formed a bond between the square and the base board, so the square has to be held flat and in place. I confidently laid down 16 squares using the PVA and then gawped in horror as the wood went all bendy and lifted off the base board.

Luckily, I had a towel, an offcut of MDF, some lead bricks and about 50kg of soapstone to hand, all of which I piled on top of the curly squares (in that order), hoping it would hold them flat until the glue had set. 24 hours later, I was very relieved to find my plan had worked. But this wouldn't do for the rest of the board, so I switched to polyurethane glue. This stuff doesn't have water in it so it doesn't make wood change shape. It does, however, try to expand into a foam as it sets, which is tiresome - you stick a square down, wait 5 minutes, then come back and find that it's hovering 4mm above the board on a little foamy pillow. So you lean on it to push it back into place, and wait another 5 minutes. This process continues until the glue has largely set, which thankfully is after about only half an hour. Next time I do this I'll try either epoxy resin or slow-acting cyanoacrylate (i.e. superglue), both of which will cost much more than PVA or polyurethane but ought to be much more convenient and faster.

Finally I used a router and a straight edge to true up the edges of the board, stuck ebony strips to the sides and hacked everything into shape with a spokeshave and random orbit sander until it was looking delicious. The board is finished in the "obvious" manner: wipe on shellac, allow to dry, rub with steel wool and 1500 grit abrasive, polish with beeswax/turpentine paste. Finishing is, of course, its own enormous topic, but this page is already far too long. Finished! The finished set The dark pieces. Great grain in the cocobolo, huh? And there we have it. All in all I'm pleased with how it turned out. Things I'll do differently next time: 1. Cut the tops of the bishops using my magical milling machine jig thingy. 2. Give the knights even more fearsome 80's hairstyles. 3. Use ebony instead of cocobolo. It's just as exotic and (in my opinion) just as beautiful, but it's better behaved. 4. Use a sensible glue to make the board. Comments, questions, advice, admiration, abuse, offers of marriage (women only please) etc.

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Question: Which chess piece is in the shape of a horse’s head?
Answer: Knight